At just 17 years old, swimmer Summer McIntosh has made Olympic history by becoming the first Canadian athlete to bring home three Olympic gold medals in a single Olympics. She won the last gold medal in 200 meters individual medley with a record time, surpassing the previous record set by Katinka Hosszu from Hungary in 2016, by a whole two seconds. With the swimming events completed at the Paris Games, McIntosh has secured a total of three gold medals and one silver.
Who Is Summer McIntosh?
Summer has been swimming competitively since 2014 as an eight-year-old. She made her Olympic debut in Tokyo at 14, where she was the youngest athlete in the entire Team Canada. She is one of Canada's most decorated and successful swimmers, despite also being one of the youngest. Her success is perhaps in her genes, with her mother, Jill Horstead, being an Olympic swimmer during the 1980s.
Summer has broken countless records in her swimming career to date, with more than 75 Canadian Age Group Records, the Canadian Olympic website states.
At her first World Aquatics Championships in 2022, she won two gold medals and broke the junior record in both, the women's 200m butterfly and women's 400m individual medley events. She became the first Canadian swimmer to win two gold medals at the World Aquatics Championships in a single year. In the same year, she also won a silver and a bronze medal.
In the World Aquatic Championship of the following year, she won four more medals, two of which were gold. This made her the first Canadian to win four career gold medals at the World Aquatics Championships.
More achievements
At the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, McIntosh was the most decorated Canadian athlete and brought home six medals, including two gold, as well as breaking the world junior records in the individual medley events.
She broke her first senior record at the 2023 Canadian Olympic Swimming trials. She beat Olympic swimming champion, Ariarne Titmus' record in the women's 400m freestyle by more than three-tenths of a second. She also lowered the women's 400m individual medley world record by almost half a second, this was previously held by Katinka Hosszu.
Her most recent record-smashing performance (besides the Olympics) was in February of this year when she beat American swimming legend Katie Ledecky in the 800m freestyle. Ledecky has reportedly never been beaten in this event for 13 years, making McIntosh the fastest swimmer in the 800m freestyle in the world. She beat the Canadian record in this event by a significant 9 seconds.
2024 Paris Olympics
Summer McIntosh is certainly a name that will ring out in Canadian swimming history after the 2024 Olympic Games. With four medals, three of which are gold, it seems McIntosh hasn't left the podium since she arrived in Paris.
She won gold medals in the women's 200m individual medley, 400m individual medley, and 200m butterfly, which is the same event her mother participated in at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. The silver was in the women's 400m freestyle.
''It’s pretty surreal,” McIntosh told Olympics Canada. “I’m just so proud of myself and how I’ve been able to recover and manage events. The reason I’m able to do this is just because of all the hard work and dedication I’ve given to this moment, along with all my family and my teammates, and my coaches have also worked so hard for me to be here today.''
From an eight-year-old sitting in front of her TV watching the Rio Olympics, to being on the Olympic podium less than a decade later, Summer McIntosh is indeed a swimming superstar.
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